Beautiful Marin IJ Feature on TreeGirl

Julianne Skai Arbor, aka TreeGirl, is a photographer, certified arborist, conservation educator, and forest ecotherapist. In her spectacular new book, TREEGIRL: Intimate Encounters With Wild Nature, Arbor invites readers to share her love of the wildness and grandeur of Nature through more than 150 stunning photographs of herself and other women gracefully intertwined nude with fifty species of trees in thirteen countries. The captioned images are complemented with each species natural history and ethnobotany, and by five essays on the ecopsychology, science and spirituality of the human-tree relationship.

As Vicki Larson says in her article:

“Julianne Skai Arbor is used to the raised eyebrows, strange looks and snickers when she tells people that she photographs herself naked in trees.

Arbor explains, “Imagine if we completely open our hearts to Nature and fall in love over and over again with the sacredness of this life force . . . I invite us modern humans to become re-enchanted with Nature, to experience intimacy and soulful engagement with trees and our more-than-human companions on this Earth . . . I have found my secret love in the plant kin-dom of trees. I encourage you to find your secret love in Nature as well – to find your wild within.”

The author has traveled the world from Northern California, to Australia and Oceana, to Europe, to the plains of Africa in search of breathtaking trees. Once she finds one that she connects with, she sheds her clothes, scales the trunk and limbs, and photographs herself in authentic connection with the tree. The resulting photographs are gorgeous and awe-inspiring, inspiring the reader to find their own sensorial connection with nature.

Arbor will be giving a book talk, slide show and art exhibit at Open Secret Bookstore, 923 C St., San Rafael, 7:00 p.m. on March 20 and April 21. Admission is free.

You can read the entire Marin Independent Journal article and view some of Arbor’s stunning images here.